JANE RILES
BIOGRAPHY
Jane Riles was born in the winter of 1939 in
St. Joseph, just north of Kansas City, in the SHOW ME state of Missouri. This
was a fitting birthplace for an artist who in her maturity would show in her
art a openness, an acceptance of all aspects of life and an unbounded
exuberance for every facet of life. From her first steps there was plenty of
evidence of a deep restlessness and also of an explosive energy. To this day,
Jane Riles and Jane Riles's art is, at its heart, unpredictable, intuitive,
often whimsical and always wildly beautiful.Her art is always in motion and
"on the go".
On her 4th grade report card, the teacher
wrote, "Jane is my shining light". Jane's father was a country doctor
and a celebrated local surgeon and her mother, a former school teacher. But
like Jane, the doctor and his wife had an adventuresome spirit. They had
vacationed in Florida when Jane was 8. The warm Florida winters beckoned. In
1952 Dr. Riles bought a medical practice in Fort Lauderdale and, with his wife,
Jane and her younger brother, moved to Fort Lauderdale.
In early 1957 Jane entered Mary Washington in
Fredericksburg, Virginia, because of its emphasis on foreign languages and its
proximity to Washington. The capital's cosmopolitan and international character
appealed to her. She was interested in a career in the Foreign Service. The
study of foreign languages appealed to Jane because it opened up the door to
foreign travel and adventure.. For one year Jane lived in the on campus
"French House" where only French was spoken. Mary Washington gave
Jane a degree in French and a big start as a painter. The noted German-American
muralist and illustrator, Emil Schnelock taught at Mary Washington from 1938 to
1958. Jane's creative life was born the day she walked into Schnelock's
elective art class in the fall of 1958. Taking this course would require an
additional $20 art materials fee. Jane was hesitant at first and wrote her
mother in Florida. Her mother said, "Go ahead, Jane" and an artist
was born that fall. She learned composition, color and design. The desire to
paint infused Jane's personality. Although she majored in French, she took art
courses throughout her years at Mary Washington.
Jane returned to Florida in December 1960 at
the end of her college program and took a job teaching world geography at a
Fort Lauderdale Junior High School.
With her college roommate, the first edition
of "Europe on Five Dollars a Day" and the money from teaching, Jane
made the "grand" tour of Europe in the summer of 1961. She returned in
September with a diary, sketches and the memory of the major works of the
Louve, the Prado and other European museums . Next, Jane taught two semesters
of French in the high desert community of China Lake, California. After
finishing the term at China Lake, Jane married Bill Wamsley in June, 1962, in
Chillicothe, Missouri, where her parents had relocated. As the wife of a mining
engineer, she knew that she would be living in remote and exotic areas of the
world.
In 1965 Bill was given his first overseas
assignment as mine superintendent of the world's largest bauxite mine in the
very remote Amazon jungle location of Moengo, Suriname (Dutch Guyana). The hot
steaming rain forest, the driving rain on her tin roof, the far off sounds at
night of native drumming, the screeching and low moans of jungle animals and
the constant rumble from the big bauxite crusher just down river combined to
energize Jane's imagination and drive her passion to paint. She had brought her
oils, canvases and sketch books and for the first time in her life she began to
paint with an energy and a devotion that amazed even her.
Her sketches of this period are
carefully-crafted line drawings of native huts, of river canoes and of
landscapes as if she were trying to bring some sort of artistic order out of
the disorder and the wild green life that existed just beyond her front door.
Her Suriname oils, on the other hand, of
jaguars and of brooding landscapes just seem to explode off the canvas in a
thick richness of reds, oranges and ochre and the movement of sinister shapes.
In the late summer of 1966 Bill and Jane
returned to a new job in Peoria, Illinois. Annelise, the first of her two
daughters, was born in Peoria that November. The family then moved to Portland,
Oregon, where Bill went to work for ESCO, a manufacturer of mining equipment.
Marguerite was born in the spring of 1969 in Portland. That summer of 1969 the
Wamsleys were transferred to ESCO's Danville, Illinois plant. They lived in
Danville for three years from 1969 to 1972.
Danville was close to the University of
Illinois and to the vibrant Chicago art scene. Jane painted almost full time,
up to 100 canvases a year and she quickly established herself as an artist of
repute by winning many awards at art shows and fairs across Illinois and
Indiana. In April of 1972 Jane had her first solo show at "The
Gallery" in Danville. The night of the reception over 1/3 of her paintings
were sold. The impetus for this burst of painting was her continuing art
education at the Graduate School of Art, University of Illinois, Urbana and the
Peoria Art School in Peoria. During this time she studied with many of the
major Chicago School and Illinois artists including Nicola Ziroli, Glen
Bradshaw, Jerome Savage and George Foster. Ziroli, an Italian-American artist
of the Chicago School with a national reputation for his landscapes and figure
painting, was Jane's great influence. Ziroli taught Jane an appreciation for
the aesthetics of painting. During this period Jane also taught oil painting at
the Danville Community College. By 1972, Jane was well respected by her peers
and by art critics. She was well on her way to becoming a major figure in
Midwest art. But this was not to be.
In 1972 Bill was asked to head ESCO's
European Division and the family moved to Lyon, France. The Wamsleys lived in a
flat in the center of the city, but also purchased a small country farmhouse in
the mountains that in time they restored. They travelled frequently to the
company sites in Africa, the Middle East and, of course, all over Europe. She
painted in oils and sketched on all of these trips. Jane established her own
art studio in Lyon.
Her paintings were exhibited all over the
Lyon area including the prestigious SALON 75 of the Societe Lyonnaise des Beaux
Arts in April of 1975 and also at the SALON D'AUTOMNE a year later. During this
period Jane had 3 one person shows: at the U.S. Consulate, at L'Institut de
Pasteur and at the Hotel Sofitel. As in Suriname and in Illinois, in Lyon the
center of Jane's life, after her two girls, was her art.
In 1979 the Wamsley's left France, going home
around the world, visiting Turkey, Iran, India, Hong Kong, and Japan before
reaching Portland, Oregon, the headquarters of ESCO. On arrival in Portland,
Jane immediately began art courses at the Pacific Northwest College of Art and
for the first time she began to paint in acrylics. This new medium freed her
stylistically to be a lot more spontaneous.
The return to Portland also coincided with
some new career directions.The energy and the passion that she had for so long
devoted to her art she now directed toward teaching French on the secondary
level and getting a Ph.D in French literature from the University of Oregon.
Working for a cooperative of all public Oregon universities, from 1984 to 1987
Jane directed the "Oregon Center For French Studies Abroad" a program
based in the old university town of Poitiers, France. She sketched alot but
painted infrequently during these busy years in France. However, her
impressions of France and her memories of faces and friendships became the raw
materials of her art when she did begin to paint later. Jane was 47 when she
returned the the United States, a supportive mother to her own two
"shining lights", her daughters, now both in college. For a year Jane
lived in New York City where she directed a student international exchange
program. But the call back to the Middle West was strong and she accepted a
treaching job in Kansas.
From 1988 to 1995 Jane taught French first at
Wichita State University and then at Kansas State University. Jane directed
Wichita State's "Summer Abroad Program" based in Strasbourg, France.
Later, living in Manhattan, Kansas, Jane created, produced and starred in a
daily interactive French language television program whose signal was sent to
classrooms of rural high schools (without French teachers) throughout the
United States. The program's format was entertaining, funny and highly
creative. It was a sort of "Mister Roger's Neighborhood" in French
aimed at the adolescent language student.
In 1994 Jane moved into a house on the rim of
a canyon over looking the city of San Diego. For two years she renovated the
inside and outside, established a French style garden and arranged an art
studio. The house is reminiscent of cottages in the south of France.
In 1995 a publisher of learning CD's in
Seattle, after seeing tapes of Jane's Manhattan TV shows, hired Jane to create
and star in the language video, "French To Go".
It was a great success. During this time Jane
also taught French in San Diego, but her great desire was to start painting
again. Again she found herself at a crossroads. She could continue as a French
teacher. She could teach full time on the college level. Or she could cut those
career ties forever and strike out on her own as a full time artist. She chose
the latter. She recalled the emotions and the rewards of her budding art career
in Danville, Illinois, 30 years before and how that success had ended with the
move to Lyon. Her life had been a series of moves and new beginnings. Now, she
resolved to stay the course!
Just after her move to San Diego, her oldest
daughter, Annelise, now a law professor, gave Jane the tuition at the Athenaeum
School of the Arts in nearby La Jolla as a birthday gift.. She took these
courses and more and in early 1998 she burst on the San Diego art scene like a
storm just as she had in Illinois in 1969. On the strength of her artwork, she
was accepted into the San Diego Museum of Art Artists Guild. She joined the San
Diego Art Institute, the La Jolla Art Association and the San Diego Watercolor
Society and her paintings were accepted for nearly every show. In May of 1998
she won First Place in the Spring Show of the San Diego Watercolor Society; in
June of 1999, an Honorable Mention in the same group; a Best In Show at the
Fall Awards Show of the Watercolor Society in 1999; a month later the First
Place in the Watercolor Society, and the Juror's Choice Award at the San Diego
Institute of Art in 2000.
In October of 1999 Jane traveled to remote
Bangladesh and this trip resulted in 12 large arcylic paintings that were
exhibited at the La Jolla Art Association Gallery in February 2000. Also , her
many ink sketches from that trip illustrated a guide to Bangladesh published in
2002.
Jane’s first major one-person show in the USA
opened at the San Diego Art Institute on 12 December 2002, called CITY
REFLECTIONS. The show ran for a month. Here are some images:
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Jane is currently painting about 200 arcylics
and watercolors a year. Many of these original pieces are also available as
limited edition prints. Her clients, like her experiences, are worldwide.
Although she resides in San Diego, she is generally in France, or anywhere else
in the world. About 2 months of the year, Jane makes one month teaching trips
to the south of France or to the Dordogne area every September. She takes six
to a dozen art students. When not traveling in the local area, she conducts
daily art classes in a rented villa or a chateau. In September 2003 and in 2004
with Atlanta artist, Cathy Ehrler,
she conducted three weeks of painting workshops in the small village of
Coulaures, Dordogne, in a 600 year old chateau. Another workshop is planned in
the same location for September 2009.
.
Late in 2003 and into 2004 Jane began a
series of exciting abstracts. These new paintings have been on exhibit in many
shows in the last year, including the San Diego Art Walk in April 2004 and
2005; two shows at the San Diego Art Institute, and two shows at the San Diego
Water Color Society. Her abstract floral, LE BOUQUET, won the first place, Best
in Show, in the July San Diego Water Color Society show.
LE
BOUQUET
Jane was 3 months of the summer 2005 in
Cannes and in Paris. She had a
group show in a Cannes gallery.
In the summer of 2006, Jane conducted another
artwork shop in Cannes in the south of France and in the summer of 2007 she
held a two week workshop for the first time ever in Paris and then later in
Cannes.
In the summer of 2008 Jane showed in many San Diego art fairs,
a one person show in Missouri and in the October Las Olas Show in Fort
Lauderdale, Florida and she also conducted painting workshops in her San Diego
studio. For more details on Jane's January 2009 art workshops in San Diego CLICK HERE
Jane is now planning a September 2009
workshop again in the southwest of France. E mail her now for details.
Jane Riles is an uncommon American
phenomenon. She was born a child of the great plains, raised on the Atlantic's
edge, educated in proper Virginia, but then sent out into the Amazon jungle,
then settled in civilized France, back to the great plains and finally another
ocean's edge, the Pacific. Jane's senses have been on overdrive for 60 years.
She is indeed her teacher's "shining light" and her light still
shines as she continues to create works of art that inspire and energize us
all.
(contact the artist directly at janeriles@aol.com
or visit her web site by clicking here.